


We Are The Music Makers

by Stephquiem



Series: Going Back [6]
Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence, Canon Jewish Character, Gen, Morally Ambiguous Character, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-10-24 15:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17706827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stephquiem/pseuds/Stephquiem
Summary: Sometimes, there are no good decisions, only ones that keep you alive.Takes place during #20 The Discovery and #22 The Solution.





	1. David

**_Priton_ **

I don't really understand much about chess. I've never had the opportunity to play, mostly because the hosts I've had have both mostly found the game boring. But I do know that the game doubles as human shorthand for something complex and strategy-based. I also don't really understand much about the Ellimist and Crayak's "game." I'm not sure how much I really want to know, either, given what there is to pick out of Steph's brain and what I can glean from being an unwilling piece in it. Still, chess and whatever the fuck those two are doing are still both multi-player games. Whatever else they are, they still operate with two important features.

Moves and countermoves.

Not everything's always so clear. Not everything gets answers. Sometimes, for instance, you don't know that saving two Hork-Bajir is going to later provide you with sanctuary and ultimately help you win the war, and sometimes you can't tell that the shitty kid you pick up along the way is going to come so close to undoing everything you've been working for. Maybe those two things are unrelated. Maybe they're not. Maybe Crayak landed on the cosmic "skip next turn" space. But you know. Probably not.

Here's what I  _do_ understand:

The way I look at it, there are no  _good_ options here. No options that would leave anyone emotionally unscarred. War is ugly and and cruel. Good people die and evil people get to live. That's reality. Hell, that's one version of how  _this_ all goes. The Toms and the Rachels--the innocent prisoners of war and the children who have no business being soldiers--get to die and the Visser Threes and the Allorans--the literal mass murderers--get to live. Imprisoned and disgraced, sure, but most of us don't get those options.

War is never fair. It's never kind. The "right thing" isn't always the thing you have to do in order to win.

Steph doesn't want to admit it, but that reality is what makes for a compelling story. It's not interesting if everything gets wrapped up neatly with no fuss. If she could admit that, she wouldn't be here. But if the story wasn't compelling, she wouldn't care enough about it to be here, either. Sometimes it's just like that.

A long time ago, Steph told me she couldn't punish people for things they hadn't done yet. She said it wasn't fair. And I guess, yeah, as far fairness goes, she's right. But like I said, war isn't fair. And there's a real, discernible benefit to letting Steph and Erek be friends, beyond just making my host feel good. But you know, there was also the fact that Erek King was a mostly benign--if sometimes morally grey--character in a sea of more black and white threats.

What I'm saying is, the same amnesty for future actions doesn't really apply across scenarios.

* * *

 We are very, very stupid.

Part of me understands that human children, despite what they may be capable of, are still, you know,  _juveniles._ Their brains are still developing. They've still got all these scenarios they're only experiencing for the first time. It's why fourteen year olds shouldn't be making life and death situations. I spent three years teaching kids only a couple years older, and while some of them were smarter than others they were all still dumbass teenagers. Except for the ones who were housing alien parasites, but you might have noticed by now that my species isn't made up entirely of Einsteins either.

The other part of me couldn't help feeling like this should have been easier with us there. What's the point of having someone there who knew the future if that foreknowledge couldn't be used to avoid stupid mistakes? It could have been so simple. That first try, Tobias said that the blue box was sitting right there on David's desk--easy pickings. If we'd volunteered to scope out David's house instead of Tobias, I could have grabbed the morphing cube and gotten out of there without any trouble, and without going back to report to Jake like Tobias had done instead.

That's not what happened, though, for the very simple fact that Steph forgot that bit of the story. 

It's a small thing. Our first disastrous attempt was relatively short-lived. But it was also a symptom of a bigger problem that we'd been able to ignore before now. Human memory is murky at the best of times. It's hard to remember all of the details of even _one_ scenario, let alone a few thousand. Think of your favorite book. Even if you've read it a hundred times, do you have the whole thing memorized? Probably not. You probably know all the important beats, your favorite lines. Maybe you have select passages that you know by heart. Now imagine your favorite book was instead sixty-two books--or more, depending on who you asked and what they thought counted. It doesn't matter how good your memory is, you're going to forget things. You're going to forget the little details, especially if you don't have the material itself to reference. It's a problem. And if you think having two minds available to remember things helps, let me tell you. That's really not how the Yeerk-host connection works. We're two separate brains, yeah, but still with our faulty, finite memories.

Steph and I tried to tell ourselves that it was the big things that were important, the big things that she was here to change, but we'd already seen that even the smallest things could change the way it all went down.

* * *

  ** _Steph_**

We weren't there when Marco, Ax and Tobias got to the David's house that last, terrible time. Marco was in a hurry to get there ahead of David's e-mail timer, and honestly, I can't blame him for thinking Ax would be more useful than we would.

In the weeks since Cassie's return, we'd been trying, awkwardly, to integrate Priton into things. You know, officially. It felt very silly--the original plan was for him to leave after we got the morphing cube, but the closer that time came, the less we talked about it. Maybe it would make sense for him to stay, at least a while longer. If only because it would put the others more at ease. We were rightfully antsy about security, and we'd caused enough trouble already.

Right. _That's_ the reason.

Jake had asked Priton if he could help hack into the Empire's computer systems--not with anything specific in mind, I guess, but because it'd be useful to have another alien IT guy.

Priton was, usually, pretty low-key about any anti-Andalite sentiment he had. He mostly kept his opinions to himself--because, he told me once, "no one's going to listen to me anyway." But still, you could tell it must have stung for him to admit, "You're probably better off asking Ax." He sounded resigned. "I didn't really deal with computer stuff."

"What  _did_ you do?" 

"Recruitment. You know, 'cause I'm such a people person."

Anyway, I don't know what we would have done to avert disaster if we'd gotten to David's earlier. But I guess, in the end, it wasn't really the battle that was the important thing. We hardly seemed to put a dent in those, change-wise. Maybe because seven--technically eight--people weren't  _that_ much more useful against a hoard of aliens than six was. This wasn't a battle that could be "won" anyway. No matter the outcome, we were ruining someone's life. Ours, if the Yeerks got the blue box. David's. His family's. 

Things could have gone a lot better. It didn't have to come down to what it did--a wrecked house, a destroyed family, whatever would come of David down the line. It could have been over before any of it got to this point. But that's not what happened. Maybe that's my fault. It's probably my fault. If my memory was better, or if Priton and I were more used to asserting our will on things, maybe it would have turned out differently. I don't know. 

There we were. A small zoo of wild animals, an Andalite, and Visser Three's latest monstrosity. There was blood on my leopard paws, I could see it when Priton turned my head to stare at David, in the middle of this battle scene, cowering with his backpack, looking exactly like the scared, clueless fourteen year old it was so easy to forget he was. When you got right down to it, none of us should have been there, but at least the rest of us had experience. At least Priton and I had known what we were getting ourselves into. 

<Brave Andalites,> Visser Three mocked. <You'll let me kill these humans rather than give up the box?>

"No!" David shouted. "I have the stupid box. Just let us go. I have the stupid box right here in my backpack, if you want it so bad."

What was supposed to happen next, I was pretty sure, was that we were supposed to grab David and bust out of his house. I was almost positive, even if I wasn't one hundred percent on the details. 

That's not quite what happened.

As David started to sling off his backpack, I suddenly felt my body lunge forward, jaws open, toward David.

"Ahh!" he yelled, in surprise, in fear, I don't know. But the bag slipped from his hands, and Priton caught it in my mouth. 

<Go!> We were turning, racing toward the only logical exit. The doorway was blocked. There was only the window. "Logical" might have been the wrong word to use.

<Rachel! Get the kid out of here!> Jake yelled.

<Leave him!>

<What?> I'm not sure who said this. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was all of us.

<I said leave him!> 

Maybe if Priton had sounded less sure. Maybe if we didn't hadn't been holding David's backpack with the blue box inside, the thing we had come for. Maybe if Visser Three didn't decide to take our sudden distraction as his cue to take another swing with his pile-driver limbs. Maybe it would have all still happened the way it was "supposed" to. 

But that's not what happened. What happened was we barreled toward near-destroyed outer wall of David the Almost Animorph's bedroom, until something--whether it was Visser Three's limbs or our following allies, I don't know--slammed into us, driving us out into the ruined afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _]The Discovery_ is a weirdly difficult book to adapt for Going Back. There's a lot more ridiculousness than I expected, or remembered, and while I think I have a pretty high tolerance for Animorphs-Style Nonsense, it's a lot more frustrating when I'm trying to write around it. Unless I completely commandeer a book for my own [plot] devices. I didn't think the David Trilogy would be difficult to get through for _this_ reason, to be honest. 
> 
> Also I continue to be terrible at writing battle scenes, and continue to skip them. This book tried to end me and I'm a little bitter about it.


	2. Divergence

_**Steph** _

It's actually a myth that cats always land on their feet. They _do_ have a righting reflex that usually does the job, even for bigger cats, like leopards. Not so much tigers, who are bigger and I guess less flexible. Still, it's pretty hard to be nimble when you're being thrown out of a two story building.

I swear I heard a  _crunch_ when we landed in David's now debris-strewn lawn. Even through the Priton-induced fog, I could feel the sharp stabbing pain as we breathed, and as Priton heaved us back onto my feet. David's backpack was still clutched in my mouth, Priton holding on like his life depended on it as he staggered away from the house. I could hear police sirens.

Behind David's house, past the pool and the fence, was a small park, the kind that's just greenery and a footpath with a few empty benches and picnic tables. There was no one there now to witness our bleeding menagerie, either because it was too early for people to be home from work and school, or because everyone had been scared off by sounds of destruction. There had to be someone around to witness _something,_ even if they stayed safe inside somewhere. Someone on this street who didn't work during the day. Some kid home sick from school.  _Somebody._

It hadn't occurred to me before, that we leave witnesses, or to wonder what happened to them. It should have.

Past the fence that bordered the park on its far side, we found an alley, where the residential area gave way to scattered businesses. Priton stopped to demorph. He didn't let go of the backpack until my leopard fangs had retracted back to their normal, human size. When he looked down at the bag, I could see the pale blue of the morphing cube peeking out of one of the holes his death grip had formed in the fabric.

The others weren't far behind us. Rachel had come out with us, with Jake and Ax close behind. Cassie, Tobias and finally Marco were bringing up the rear. David was nowhere to be seen.

<What was _that_?> Jake demanded. He was still more tiger than human, even as he was demorphing. He didn't sound happy.

The last bit of leopard fur was fading into my own skin as Priton leaned down to pick up his prize. "What was what?" He sounded calm. Casual. Like we were talking about the weather, or what we'd seen on television the night before.

<We just left that kid and his dad at the mercy of Visser Three!>

<And his mom,> Tobias said. <I saw her pull up as we were leaving.>

Priton straightened up. He wasn't looking at Jake, or Tobias, or any of them really. "So what?"

<So--> Jake's thought speak was cut off suddenly as he became more human.

"So we don't do leave people like that," Cassie helpfully finished.

I could feel laughter bubbling up in my chest, but Priton managed to suppress it. "Sure. Okay. And what were we going to do with him?" Priton held up David's backpack. "Turn him into another Animorph? Traumatized kid who has no idea what he's getting into? I didn't hear anyone championing us saving his dad, too, while we were in there, so it's not like he'd have anywhere else to go."

"But--"

Priton let out a breath--a frustrated sound that was the first to bely his image of calm--and said, "Listen. Sure. We could have saved him. Easy. But trust me, it's better this way."

Rachel spoke up for the first time, "How could it be better--"

" _Because this way he's probably not going to end up dead."_

I felt the shiver go down my spine. I don't know whose it was. His. Mine. Both of ours. It was the only real indication we got, but there it was. The shift. The moment of no return. When a "spoiler" stops being a spoiler because it's no longer on the trajectory for the future.

No one said anything for a long, tense moment. 

Finally, Marco piped up, "He doesn't know who we are. He can't give us away."

Priton inclined his head at Marco, in acknowledgment, I guess. When no one else said anything, Priton unzipped the backpack and pulled out the morphing cube. He weighed it in my hand. It was somehow both smaller and heavier than I expected it to be. It felt oddly warm, but maybe I was imagining that.

Priton stared down at the cube for a little too long. My hand flexed around it like he was trying to reassure himself that it was real. 

<What do we do with it?> Tobias asked.

"We guard it with our lives is what we do with it," Priton answered, finally tearing my eyes away from the softly glowing box in my hand. Then, he walked, with purpose, to where Cassie was standing. He thrust the blue box into her surprised hands, saying, "Here. Hide it. Keep it safe." It was hard to tell if he meant to put more gravitas in that last one, or if I just imagined it.

Turning away, Priton dropped the backpack on the ground before he started walking toward the end of the alley. 

"Where are you going?" Jake called after us.

"Home." Priton didn't turn around. "Call us when it's time to deal with our next crisis."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hear your "Wait what?"s and your "But what about"-ing. It'll be okay. Probably. Assuming I don't fuck up the execution.
> 
> Speaking of fuck ups. I'm probably really missing an opportunity by never writing Priton as an outright villain. For a lazy asshole, he's scarily competent when he's inclined to be. But his kink seems to be people with good intentions so you know, it's hard to get past that.


	3. Saddler

_**Priton** _

Here's something you won't get from the other Animorphs: the last "book" of what should have been our David saga was one of Steph's favorites.

It was actually her third favorite, if you want to get real specific. Behind Elfangor's _hirac delest_ and that time Tobias tried to kill himself, which, uh, I guess tells you what kinds of books she was into. In her defense, Steph would point out that it was entirely different when she was thinking of those things as fiction--it's not like she took actual joy from Tobias' pain, for example. She's just one of those people who are inclined toward stories that make you cry, and once upon a time this was one of them. 

They buried Saddler on a Sunday afternoon.

I'd never been to a funeral before--and Steph had never been to a specifically Jewish one before--but I had memories of them. Ben's parents' funerals were so strong in his mind that they were part of the imprint his mind left on me. I could still vividly picture ten-year-old Ben in his itchy black suit, the week-long _shiva_ after his mother's funeral. I'd been an awkward passenger on three separate trips to his aunt's synagogue so Ben could say  _kaddish,_ the only time of year he was inclined to attend services of either of the religions he was raised with. A second, different set of memories and traditions for his father.

I don't think it would have been much comfort to the kid's family, but I think it was probably better this way. Sometimes tragedy is just senseless. Sometimes a teenage kid is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. In some universes, maybe he also gets caught up in a terrible conspiracy he has no part in, and ends up at the bottom of an elevator shaft. In some universes he dies in a hospital bed. Maybe surrounded by family. Maybe in a moment when he was left alone, when in some other universe someone could have taken the opportunity to steal his place.  Both scenarios ultimately end the same way. I guess you can decide for yourself if the how's really make a difference.

We went to the funeral. Not in "person," of course--we acquired a raven caged up in Cassie's barn, because it was less conspicuous than a merlin, and more able to hide in the trees than a seagull. It just kind of felt like we should. If Rachel or Jake noticed a particularly interested raven in the background of their cousin's funeral, they never said.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have felt guilty.

There was a kind of selfish logic to it all. I knew, with utmost certainty, that I couldn't have hid my presence from David. There were too many variables. Too many unknowns. I don't know what David's "no killing humans" policy would have had to say about Human-Controllers. I don't know if we'd be disqualified on a technicality, like humans in morph were. You'll excuse me for not wanting to add "child murder" to my list of sins. 

Though, you know, maybe I did feel some semblance of guilt. Or something like it. There I was, my end goal in reach, and I didn't feel ready to take it. Maybe I hadn't earned it. Maybe it felt like there was an air of finality to it all--like gaining the morphing power would signal the end. Maybe I had more to do and denying myself the easy out would guarantee I actually did it. Or maybe, just maybe, I'm an idiot who doesn't think shit through, and I'm just trying to excuse myself.

If it helps, I really did believe it was better this way, for David. From Steph's memory, I was pretty sure David was already a little shit, even without everything that would have happened. I genuinely believed things wouldn't have ended better for him. Trapped or dead--by my hand, by Rachel's, by nature. Rats don't live that long. Two, three years maybe? Infestation's got better odds than that. You can say he'd be better off dead all you want--he's not. 

Let's be honest, though. David wasn't the person I had an interest in saving. 

<They say there's nothing worse than burying your own children.>

<Yeah.>

<At least they have something to bury, I guess.> Steph paused. <God, that's morbid, sorry. I didn't mean it how it sounded.>

From our vantage point in the trees, I could clearly see both Tom and Rachel. <Do you think it makes it better? Easier?>

<No. Probably not.>

 The service was ending. They were preparing to lower the casket.

<Do you think we should tell them?> Steph asked. <About David, I mean.>

I considered it. For just a second, but I  _did_ consider it. <I don't think so.>

<If we told them, they'd at least think you're not a sociopath. That might be nice.>

I didn't respond. Honestly, what the others thought bothered Steph a lot more than it bothered me. I didn't mind being the bad guy. Morality's subjective anyway. When you're making big decisions that affect whole species, you're going to seem like the bad guy to  _somebody._ For every person who sees you as a hero, there's someone else who sees you as a villain.  I don't know how to figure out which one's right. Your mileage may vary.

Still, I think there's probably something to be said for lacking remorse. Someone's gotta make those kinds of decisions. Why not the guy who won't lose sleep over it? 

That's probably not a great answer. I know. But it was the best I could come up with at the time. And in my defense, I wouldn't know I was kidding myself for a long time.

<You ready to go?> I asked.

<Yeah. Okay.> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This feels awfully anti-climactic. Should I say that about my own writing. I don't know. I'm kind of working under the rule of "Literally anything is better than the original draft," which I realize means nothing to any of you. I will say that if "Falling Up" wins the award for being closest to my original concept for it, "We Are the Music Makers" wins for being Most Changed. I think the only thing that remains the same is... uh... David's in it? To be honest, "The Original Was Problematic" would be a better name for this series than "Going Back," so maybe we should also call it Most Improved.
> 
> Despite being Jewish, I've still never been to a Jewish funeral--though I've said _kaddish_ before--which I'd say is a good thing, but it's mostly because I live in a different country from all but one Jewish relative. It's weird to research things on Google that you feel like should already know.
> 
> Stay tuned next for... maybe a lot of short parts. Maybe something Interludes-esque. There will be a lot of Erek, though. Maybe a spirit-themed title to herald the start of the Ghostwriter-era. Would that be weird? Probably.


End file.
